Title Sequences

You know, what with all the television shows I've been chain watching lately, I started thinking about title sequences. Why did I start thinking about title sequences? Well, the reason for this is simple. Take Smallville for example, the title sequence lasts for about a minute, showing me all the pretty faces of all the pretty people that are in it, mostly in slow motion with extracts from the show framing them. Why is this important?

It means I have just under a minute to pry myself off the sofa, dash to the kitchen, grab snack food/liquid/badger/whatever and get back in time for the rest of the episode to start. But you look at some other shows, and wonder where the noble art of the title sequence went. Lost is a prime example, there's about five seconds of the title lazily flying into focus and then it passes and that's it, the credits are in the episode itself.

Now that's all modern and stuff and more importantly, has cut down the title sequence from fifty five seconds to just five, so that's fifty seconds more episode you're getting. But is that worth the trade off from a good, strong, title sequence complete with good theme music and pretty people in slow motion? I dunno, I mean, some shows would be terrible without the title sequence, look back at Babylon 5, that updated it every season.

Personally, I was thinking about what I'd like as a title sequence for the tv shows I tap away at. I think November's Children would probably warrent only the title itself, then get on with it, while Resistance probably wants to more lavish pretty-people-slow-motion-go-to-the-kitchen kind. Of course, there's never enough time to go to the bathroom in those sequences... you have to pause the dvd for that.

STORAGE 24

I'll always feel obligated to watch Noel Clarke stuff, mainly because he's good at what he does and he's pushing the British angle into world cinema. In this he was one of the initial writers and the main character, as oppose to lead writer or director, so it's had less input from him than say Adulthood, but it certainly feels in the same vein.

Well, as much as a film about a group of people trapped in a 24-hour Storage facility and being hunted down by a recently crashed alien hostage can be in the same vein as the gritty urban realism of Adulthood and Kidulthood. And if that premise doesn't tempt you into seeing it, you're a wrong'un. This is a very well shot film, well worth seeing.


The pacing is phenomenally good, it's incredibly atmospheric, tense and dark. The acting's pretty good as well, but I wasn't sure about the ex-girlfriend character, there's something about her face I'm not a fan of. Check it out, it's a good little British sci-fi flick and we need more of those. It's kinda like Attack the Block for thirty-somethings.


Next up: The Amazing (detect sarcasm) Spiderman